"You clearly didn't turn around, and your blade was still sheathed, yet you blocked my fist with its back."
"The Dragon Hall's Third Young Master truly lives up to his reputation."
Long Yuan finally spoke.
He turned his head, his golden vertical pupils fixed on Zhao Leer. His lips moved slightly as he uttered two words.
"Too weak."
Zhao Leer's smile froze for an instant.
That instant was fleeting, so brief that ordinary cultivators would never have caught it.
But Long Yuan saw it.
After catching that nearly imperceptible stiffness, a faint glimmer flashed deep within his golden vertical pupils, so faint it could almost be called satisfaction.
"Finished testing me?"
Long Yuan's right hand finally closed around the hilt.
The instant his five fingers clenched, a blinding burst of golden light erupted from the golden saber, spreading from its tip all the way to its hilt.
It wrapped the entire saber in a tangible golden cocoon of light.
"Since you're done testing me, it's my turn."
He took three steps in succession.
With the first step, the protective halo formed from golden saber light at his side abruptly contracted, all of it attaching itself to the blade.
With the second step, the Gold-Patterned Restriction beneath the entire arena was crushed by his dragon might until it suddenly brightened twofold, and a flowing golden sheen lit up across the stone bricks.
With the third step, he was already standing before Zhao Leer.
The golden saber cleaved straight down.
There was no flashy saber technique in that strike. It simply hacked down at Zhao Leer's crown.
Yet where the blade passed, it left behind a golden rift more than three feet wide. Dense fragments of saber Dao laws churned within it, every fragment a miniature slash.
Zhao Leer reacted the instant